The fragmentary nature of the film speaks to the ways in which people recall trauma. As she reflects upon coming of age and being suspicious about attempts to control her body-the narrator discusses how she wouldn’t let her mother prepare her food due to fears that she would stuff it with sugar-the images expand to a kaleidoscope of archival materials, jarring still photos, and dramatic interludes that imagine a girl’s death before the speaker’s eyes. Passoni recalls the experience of struggling with an eating disorder in voiceover. She caresses herself sensually in the bathtub, imagining a perfectly healthy body with some curves and lean meat on her bones. While Clara’s sickly figure draws concerns from he_r teachers, who threaten her ability to dance if she doesn’t take care of herself, Passoni presents fleeting images of a young woman discovering her body anew. The image of menstrual blood runs throughout Ecstasy to explore Clara’s struggle with anorexia and idealised views of femininity as her body becomes too malnourished to feed the reproductive cycles that have only recently blossomed in her body. Passoni conveys this sensation through the story of the young girls’ first periods. They are slaves to perfection at a time when their bodies are not under their control. Provocatively shot images observe Clara and the young members of the dancing class as they rehearse and sculpt their bodies. Ecstasy burrows deep inside a young woman’s mind with an elusive hybrid portrait that draws upon the filmmaker’s own experiences to deliver images with disarming, if discombobulating, effects.Įcstasy approaches its dual narratives through a fragmentary puzzle. Although her malady overwhelms her body and reduces the physical strength that a dancer requires, it ensures a ballerina’s fine lines in her mind’s eye. She struggles with ideas of body image and starves herself into an idealised form of perfection. Ecstasy is a hypnotic and elliptical portrait of Clara, a young dancer with an eating disorder. As the film’s title suggests, one emotion overrides the other among the sensations felt by the protagonist. It just doesn't make sense.Director Moara Passoni conjures a tango between pleasure and pain in Ecstasy. I tend to err on the side of meaning in most instances. Entire poems that are essentially a collection of unrelated sentence fragments. Single sentences broken up word-by-word on different lines. However, I've seen a lot of seemingly meaningless choices that may or may not be intentional. Unless the meaninglessness of the choices is, in and of itself, a meaningful choice.Īt the risk of sounding like a poetry snob, I don't know if most, or even many, modern poets give this much thought. I can appreciate the physical aspects of a poem, even if I don't appreciate the subject matter. Subject matter is relative, but these physical things are usually present in all work. These are things I look for in visual art. I can look at a work of art and, while it may or may not be for me, I can usually appreciate the work that went into it by judging the physical aspect of it. I get that tastes are different for everyone, and I can appreciate that. But, a lot of the work that's seemingly replaced it is just baffling to me. My style and preference of poetry seems to have fallen out of favor, which is fine. I'm a member of a few different poetry boards, both on an off reddit, and, while I do post some of my work from time to time, I like to browse and read what others are writing. That said, I can't always say the same for more modern poets. He put forth more effort than teenage me ever gave him credit for. There is a purpose to his spacing, a purpose to his line breaks, and a purpose to his punctuation, or lack thereof. I've grown to appreciate his wordplay and structure. Granted, I thought this as a 16 year old in junior year literature. I thought his poems were ridiculous and mostly meaningless. The thing I'm still trying to wrap my head around is the physical structure of some poems. I've struggled to get into free verse and more modern poetry for a long time. Poets like Frost, Keats, Blake, Wilde, and Poe have always been among my favorites. Ever since high school (which was over 20 years ago now), I've loved rhyming, lyrical poems. I'll be honest - I've always been a fan of a certain type of poetry.
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